"He doesn't relate to us," Barrow told Frank Beckmann this morning on WJR-AM, continuing his quest to paint Bing as an outsider. "He doesn't know the impact of cutting buses.
A Democratic mayor, a Detroit mayor, would have known that."

The Bay Area Center for Voting Research named Detroit the most liberal city in America after voting records indicated 93.96 percent of Detroiters cast vote for "liberal candidates."

Detroit's mayoral elections are nonpartisan, and Bing has not self-identified as a Republican.

Listen to Barrow:

But Barrow says the signs are obvious.

"He walks like it, he talks like it, he doesn't refute it," said Barrow. "I think it's clear as to what he is. His friends are that."

"There's no doubt in my mind, at least, as to what he is."

Barrow also lambasted Bing for not firing chief aide Charlie Beckham over 1984 bribery conviction, misleading voters about his post-secondary degrees and cutting some bus service.

"The only ones who really seem to care about this man is those who stand
to benefit from the privatizing, the outsourcing, the shutting down,
the selling off of assets," Barrow said. "They just tout him all over the place."

Calling Bing a Republican is consistent with Barrow's populist strategy of painting the mayor as an outsider who is out of touch most Detroiters, but the "insult" could backfire with voters who don't care what party Bing might identify with, so long as he represents his constituents and fixes the city as promised.

Barrow has been gaining ground on Bing. A recent EPIC poll suggested he trails Bing 44 to 26 percent, after having received only 11 percent of the primary vote in August.